What’s next in the energy storage boom, and what #utilities need to know

What’s next in the energy storage boom, and what utilities need to know

Elon Musk showed the world earlier this week that there is no sexier technology in the power sector today than energy storage. The Tesla CEO and SolarCity chairman hinted at the unveiling of a new home battery product in a pair of tweets on Monday, sending the Twittersphere into an absolute conniption and Tesla share prices soaring.

But it’s not all internet hype. There’s real buzz in the industry for storage. In Utility Dive’s survey of over 400 electric utility executives earlier this year, more than half of them said their company should be investing more in storage, ranking it above other emerging technologies such as efficiency, rooftop solar, and microgrids. Cost-effective energy storage is widely seen as the “holy grail” for reaching higher penetrations of renewables and distributed energy resources — it’s the one emerging technology that enables the rest.